Akio MIZUTANI^*, Hisao KIKUTA¹ and Koichi IWATA¹

Factory for Advanced Optical Technology, Osaka Science and Technology Center, 2-7-1 Ayumino, Izumi, Osaka 594-1157, Japan
¹College of Engineering, Osaka Prefecture University, 1-1 Gakuen-cho, Sakai, Osaka 599-8531, Japan

(Received January 6, 2005; Accepted May 27, 2005)

Optical switching in a guided-mode resonant grating (GMRG) with a Kerr medium was numerically simulated by the nonlinear finite differential time domain (FDTD) method. The asymmetric resonant grating was adopted to have two resonant reflection peaks for the pump light and the probe light. When the pump light had a wavelength which was slightly longer than the resonant wavelength, the light was suddenly enhanced at a certain intensity because of the nonlinear resonance phenomenon. This resonance is effective in reducing the pump intensity for optical switching. When we assumed the resonant grating of polydiacetylene toluene sulphonate (PTS) with a linear refractive index of 1.88, a third-order susceptibility of 8.5× 10^-10 esu and Q factors of resonant reflection which were ∼800, the pump light of 15 kW/mm² changed transmittance of the probe light from 0 to 80%.

Key words: all-optical switch, Kerr effect, photonic crystals, guided-mode resonant grating filter, doubly periodic grating, wave localization, bistable feature, nonlinear FDTD

^*E-mail address: akio@tri.pref.osaka.jp